An issue that keeps toiling in my head for the past month has been teen judgment. Being a teen we are all guilty of this, we center our lives on this, it doesn’t matter who you are and what you are, I’m sure we are all judgmental, it is basically in our nature. When we discover things, friends, classmates, celebrities, shows, trends, and music that we do not approve of we tend to judge it, we run to our friends or family and vent about it. I’m not sure of how it damages the other things I listed but I definitely know that it damages the people we judge. Anyone can say that they don’t care about what others think or feel about them but we all do whether we admit it or not. Judgment damages us, it takes away our self esteem, and it is even enough to ruin our lives. In my opinion, it is the key to suicide, exploitation, and all the other bad things that teens could go through. We cant just wake up one day and say, “Okay, I think I’m going to stop being judgmental,” but we could try to keep it from damaging others and causing unintended harm.


As teens, we are inexperienced, blind, stupid, and uncontrollable, but we are teens. Why should we judge each other when most of us don’t really know any better or why should be judge each other when we don’t know the reason for others faults. We don’t know how all the people around us were raised, what they have experiences, and how they think, so why should we be able to judge them? What if we were placed in the same situation as the person we are judging, are we sure we would act differently?


Judgment results in rumors, scandal, bad reputations, and defamation. Once someone says something bad about someone else is usually becomes a false “fact” and it is spread. Lets say Bob tells Dylan that Krissy is a bad girl and she has done some “things” Dylan goes and tells Brianna and sooner or later the whole school is talking about Krissy. Whether or not Krissy did something bad or not she is just a teen, someone who probably doesn’t know better. The only person getting hurt would be Krissy who be would be left damaged, lonely, and self-conscious. We shouldn’t just settle for denigrating each other. None of us are infallible, we make mistakes and as a young person we should learn from mistakes not have it ruin our lives.


If we know someone who is doing something bad and damaging, we shouldn’t use this to bring the person down and gain five minutes of fame. We should help this person out, if we have the knowledge then why shouldn’t you use it to help this person. During my freshman year in high school I knew a girl who I would talk to once in a while but I wasn’t really friends with, people were talking about her and saying things that were really damaging and slanderous. One day as I was changing in the PE locker rooms this girl walks in crying and asks me to talk to her. As she tells me her story which is completely opposite of what everyone else is saying, she also tells me how she was at her breaking point, the point where she was ready to commit suicide. My other friend and I spend an hour and half the whole period talking to her and giving her the best advice we could. I believe it totally changed her and now she had became such a strong girl and she never fails to tell me how much I’ve helped her and how happy she is to know me. It makes me feel so good to know I stopped this girl from damaging herself because of others slanderous remarks and interpretations.

Judgment keeps us away from meeting people who could possibly inspire us, change our lives, and help us. If we let judgment keep us from meeting people who are different then us, we are going to miss a whole lot! A person is different from us because they have a different mindset, so why shouldn’t we let them enlighten us and tell us something we haven’t heard.


We are all at fault for being judgmental, I for one have realized how much I judge others and how much harm I cause to myself and others. We cant stop ourselves from thinking differently about such matters but what we could stop is how we express our thoughts. “But, before you start pointing fingers, make sure your hands are clean,” this is a quote that says it all, ties it up, and ends my thoughts on the evil of judgment.